Ripening rooms are well known in the art for enabling precisely controlled ripening of perishable products such as bananas, tomatoes, avocados, kiwi, mangoes and the like. The fruits and vegetables are harvested immature and shipped refrigerated to distribution centers where they are matured in ripening rooms. Various methods have been employed to control air flow and inside temperature by altering room design, pallet or container size and location within the room, or even the method in which product is unloaded and loaded onto trucks in and out of the room.
Most modern ripening rooms utilize a “drive-in” style rack to stack pallets in 2-tier or 3-tier placement to conserve warehouse floor space. In conserving floor space, the stacked boxes of produce reach a height requiring specialized forklifts. Contrary to the rest of the warehouse which generally employs the standardized narrow-aisle forklifts, narrow counterbalanced type forklifts must be utilized to load and unload pallets within the typical ripening room because their narrow masts will fit between the load rails of the drive-in rack. This type of forklift is required to be driven into the room each time a pallet is to be loaded or unloaded, resulting in excessive labor costs when executed at full scale. This need for specialized forklifts puts the typical ripening room at a disadvantage from a perspective of equipment and labor cost. By way of example, a 3-tier, 42 pallet ripening room may require two hours or more to load or unload, which is then multiplied by 20 or greater for the total number of ripening rooms a distribution center customarily employs. In addition, driving the heavy pallets, while raised more than 10 feet in the air, down a narrow corridor between the pallet rack load rails is not only time-consuming, but also may result in damage to the forklift, fruit pallet, or other structures associated within a ripening room.
The refrigeration system of a typical ripening room is capable of producing (in. British. Thermal. Units per pound) approximately 2 BTU/lb of produce; the determining factor in the calculation and regulation of the desired ripening schedule. In order to trigger the onset of ripening, ethylene gas, acting as a plant hormone, is introduced into the ripening room. The concentration and duration of ethylene gassing varies with the type of fruit. The amount of ethylene used is then calculated based on the volume of the ripening room.
Cold storage rooms and pre-coolers are other types of refrigerated rooms utilized in product storage. Unlike the “drive-in” style pallet rack of prior art ripening rooms, cold storage rooms are usually arranged with narrow aisles for high-density storage of the “select” type storage racks. The preferred narrow-aisle forklifts with outriggers “select” (rapidly add and remove) pallets from the pallet rack. Fruits and vegetables requiring a lower temperature than 40° F. may be a major cost factor. Additionally, several coolers may be required in order to properly store ethylene producers separately from ethylene-sensitive fruits and vegetables.
Some cold storage rooms are made “gas tight” for controlled atmosphere storage for products such as flowers, some fruits, vegetables, and meats. For instance, the physiological condition of apples can be maintained for six months in controlled atmosphere storage. Nevertheless, in addition to the heavy expense to install, these rooms promote environment hazardous to the workers who must enter the controlled atmosphere room.
Pre-coolers are designed to remove field heat from freshly harvested produce or flowers. Forced-air pre-coolers are often located in cold rooms, preferably near the harvest site. However, the expense, delivery time, and installation time of pre-coolers can be considerable.
Freezers pose further structural and operational challenges. Floors must be insulated and heated in order to prevent floor heaving. The entrance doors require enhanced insulation. Also, forklifts and human operators must work for sustained periods in the sub-freezing environment.
Thus, if a self-contained modular storage unit could be designed for the controlled ripening of products which was also customizable for related refrigeration and cold storage utilities and could be provided in a cost-effective manner which is simple to implement, provides compatibility with the standard narrow-aisle forklifts, and is without substantial hazard to workers, a long-felt need would be realized.